About

WHERE WE CAME FROM
We didn’t start out to reinvent the recruitment industry but rather refine it and add value by taking a consultative approach to executive search. We started with the aim of focusing entirely on the customer, steering away from cold recruitment strategies so we could concentrate on our passion – connecting real people.
Situated in a rural setting surrounded by beautiful countryside, we wanted to define a strong team culture by providing the best possible working environment for our employees. Despite the close-knit team we’ve created here, our business spans far and wide, both nationally and internationally.
WHO WE ARE
Our people have always been an integral part of the ever-growing Collingwood family and we surround ourselves with experienced, dynamic professionals. Our ethos is present in everything we do, from finding you the perfect candidate to investing in our own staff. We don’t just sell our values, we practice what we preach - putting all who work here at the heart of everything we do.

For over 11 years our team at Collingwood have always been based in the same office and so on-boarding and induction has been easy.

As we have grown it was identified that we needed to reach further afield to attract employees who would make a big difference to and impact on our business. Just as we have created a very flexible work culture we had to consider remote workers.

I must admit that I hadn't thought too deeply into how it would work or how we needed to on-board remote workers differently but I do now!!

The biggest challenge we have had to overcome is communication and ensuring the remote workers are part and feel part of our team. Blending them into our culture, ensuring they are part of everyday conversations and feel they are an equal part of our success are all critical factors.

The successful recipe we have found to be effective is having regular team meetings to share warts and all about our business, ensuring that the team is together at least one whole day per week, checking in with remote workers by phone and ideally face to face (perhaps in their own environment) every week and the most important action has been to ensure good and bad news is shared real time.

It has to be a proactive, implemented process though as it is very easy to forget employees you don't see very often! It has been a cultural change for Collingwood and we continue to learn.

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The mobile workforce continues to grow by leaps and bounds. According to Global Workplace Analytics, as of September of 2015, some 3.7 million employees -- 2.5 percent of the total workforce -- now work from home 50 percent of the time. While the total adult working population grew from 1.8 percent between 2013 and 2014, the population of remote workers increased by 6.5 percent.
In fact, according to ADP Research Institute's Evolution of Work study, 95 percent of employees believe they will be able to work from anywhere in the world. So creating a remote employee onboarding program to engage those workers and introduce them to the culture of the organization is paramount for HR leaders.